Quentin Grimes Is Making Me Give a Shit About the Sixers Again
AU has rediscovered his long-lost inner sicko thanks to our explosive new shooting guard.
A lot of people have been getting on my nerves over the past month of Sixers-watching, but few more than those NBA fans who assume that this season is just bike-riding shit for one-time Process Trusters. My co-workers and friends all seem to assume so -- that this is just muscle memory for us at this point, and we can embrace the tank just as easily now as we did for those three seasons (or somewhere between 5-10 if you believe the general media and/or Dave Silver) a decade ago. Whatever. Just put on Eagles playoff reruns, listen to some Skrilla, study up on those first-round prospects and enjoy not having to really stress over professional basketball for a few months. Simple enough; the true Sixers season has always started in late June anyway. Just be like Mike, thrilled to be as head-empty as a Ben Stiller Knicks tweet. After all, we (mostly) had fun doing this a decade ago. and like the White Lotus bachelorettes, we haven't totally forgotten how to have fun in our middle-age.
Needless to say, I have not been having fun. I've been finding this tanking run to be a profoundly corrosive and unfun venture, one that leaves me enjoying basketball and sports and life all a little bit less. This Sixers season might end up with a similar win-loss record to the Peak Hinkie years -- especially as far as the final couple months are concerned -- everything else about it, from the context to the experience to the players to the stakes, is different. And worse. So much worse.
Consequently, I've gotten so checked out and dead-inside with the Sixers that even my girlfriend got a little freaked about it. During halftime of the Sixers' game against the Hawks, I had popped on an Elsbeth for us to watch on DV-R while we ate dinner, intending to second-screen the Sixers game on my computer once halftime was over. But I forgot about the game, until it came back on after the episode ended, now with the Sixers down 20 deep in the fourth quarter. "Oh right, the Sixers are on," I unexcitedly exclaimed, to Lisa's horror. For years, she's seen me losing my mind over Sixers preseason and Summer League games, and she saw me rendered absolutely catatonic by Sixers losses as recently as this February. But she didn't recognize this person sitting next to her on the couch, not even planning on catching up or on watching the rest of that Sixers-Hawks second half. I've disturbed Lisa with my Sixers fandom countless times during the Process era, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time that my Sixers general disinterest left her so unnerved.
I thought for sure that this would be me for the rest of the season -- that I would not have a single reason to care about this team again until Mark Tatum started opening those envelopes on March 12. But last night, I found myself caring again. I found myself invested again. I found myself rooting for the Sixers to do well again. And the reason for that is Quentin Grimes.
I had been keeping my guard up with Grimes. I didn't want to overreact to a fluky surge based on a hot run during a period of basketball more meaningless than Brett Brown ever could have dreamed of. Sure, he looked great in that Golden State game, but there was no chance he was ever gonna score 44 again for the Sixers, and in the meantime, his play looked too erratic for me to really believe in him as anything more than an overachieving role player. Sure, we'd latched onto players with similarly limited upside to help steer us through the tanking years -- Michael Carter-Williams, Nerlens Noel, (very briefly) Jahlil Okafor -- but those were all rookies and sophomores, dudes young enough to at least be nowhere near their ceilin gs yet. Grimes was already on the verge of turning 25, on his fourth NBA team; not even I could talk myself into him having anywhere near star potential.
Except.... maybe I can? Not that I actually believe him to be a future All-Star, or to be a future core Sixer, or to even necessarily be on this team this time next year. But I am now at least at the stage where he's letting me dream enough that he is once again making the Sixers bearable, watchable -- maybe even a little bit fun.
They were for one night, anyway. I'd rooted against them for the entirety of that Dallas game on Sunday, cursed Grimes when he got and made those late free throws to put the Sixers up three and cursed Spencer Dinwiddie even louder for taking that awful three to tie that had next to no chance of going in (and also just for being Spencer Dinwiddie, fuck that guy). But on Tuesday night, as Grimes & Co. were making the Rockets announcers apoplectic with the historic number of threes they were hitting, I couldn't help start rooting for them to finish the job late. The shooting was too funny, Grimes and my guy Justin Edwards were just too electric, and I was amusing myself way too much imagining Mike popping several blood vessels while blaming me for the win on the next Ricky. Especially in the overtime, when the threes Grimey was hitting started getting really ridiculous... I mean it was pretty irresistible. I wasn't mad when they still ultimately lost, but I was a little disappointed -- certainly much more disappointed than I ever expected to be in a Sixers loss again this season.
Of course, it would be irresponsible if not downright reckless of me to allow myself any amount of enjoyment of this team just based on one hot Grimes performance. But while Tuesday in Houston was Grimes' hottest -- even hotter than that Golden State game somehow, with QG ending with 46 this time on 15-26 shooting (8-14 from deep) -- his numbers have been kinda ridiculous in general since the team started tanking. He's averaging 29-6-5 over his last nine games, on unthinkable 54/41/70% shooting splits. (Lol @ him still being so bad from the line, but at least he's getting there six times a night, a Harden-esque rate for a guy who once famously went the entire first month of the Knicks season without making a single free throw). His shooting (particularly off the dribble) is unsustainably hot, of course, but he's also attacking the basket like crazy, with a burst and an aggression way beyond what I ever expected. He's crashing the boards, he's still playing impressive defense -- he's kinda like our dreams come true of what Zhaire Smith could look like if he developed range (and never developed a deadly sesame allergy).
All that said, I'm still not sure how good he actually is, or how useful he could really be to this team. His midrange game is still in desperate need of further calibration, his passing and playmaking still leaves much to be desired -- even in the Houston game, his easily intercepted pass with 10 seconds to go basically cost them the W -- and his drives to the basket can cross the line from "aggressive" to "careless" real quick. I don't know how or if he fits alongside Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain, if he's worth paying what it would now take to keep him, or if the Sixers could even try to pay him without having to partially dismantle the rest of the team around him. I have no idea if he's an actual part of the Sixers' future or just a fun distraction.
But holy hell did I need a fun distraction. I needed a player to root for, to fixate on, to overanalyze and overproject and just generally be way too sweaty about. I needed a player to make Mike and the rest of his merry band of hey-isn't-this-great pro-tankers absolutely lose their shit again for a game or two. I needed a player not only to make the present bearable, but to make the future feel worth dreaming about again. I needed a reason to feel anything about the Sixers outside of dread and disgust. And if Quentin Grimes never hits another three for the Sixers -- and he might not -- I'm grateful to him for reminding me at my absolute lowest point as a Sixers fan that something vaguely resembling joy and wonderment and fun is still possible with this team.
Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.
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